Traditional art and sketching

Peruse our Sketching from the Imagination series, start your own sketch journal, or try your hand at clay sculpting! If you’re a complete beginner looking for a new hobby, or even an experienced artist looking for inspiration and workflow insights, our traditional art and sketching resources have plenty to offer!

3D digital art

Covering a wide variety of software and approaches, our books, magazines, and eBooks are there to offer you the support and motivation you need. Whether you want to sculpt a monster in ZBrush or create a stylized character in 3ds Max, take a look at our range to start your next project!

Books

With knowledge passed down through the centuries, the presence of traditional crafts such as spoon carving, leather working, and knife making is becoming more and more pronounced in contemporary culture and on platforms such as social media and e-commerce. As the pressures of a fast-paced, modern-day life weigh on people, many seek solace in more manual, artful practices that take us out of ourselves and produce something beautiful and useful.
Forge & Carve looks at eighteen crafters and how and why they create the items they do. From basket weaver to blacksmith, from potter to bowyer, meet some of the talented people behind this revival of time-honoured techniques and discover how they make a living from their artistry. Admire their craftsmanship; share their enthusiasm; and learn from their philosophy.

Pixologic's ZBrush is the 3D world's premier digital sculpting software, widely used to create high-quality models for the video game, film, animation, and many other industries. Its uniquely intuitive approach to modeling makes it a fantastic asset for any creator hoping to realize their ideas in 3D. To usher students and 3D newcomers into comfortably using this powerful software, Beginner's Guide to ZBrush presents a thorough introduction to the program with in-depth, accessible tutorials that will guide you through ZBrush's essential tools and techniques. Covering key concepts to help you get to grips with the principles of 3D, step-by-step organic, hard-surface, and mixed-surface sculpting workflows, and an overview of external rendering and 3D printing.

Beginner’s Guide to Character Creation in Maya continues 3dtotal’s tradition of offering helpful guides for beginners looking to step into the world of digital art. Talented 3D Animator and Trainer, Jahirul Amin, gives an insightful breakdown of how to model from scratch using Maya and Mudbox. Not only will you learn about the principles of rigging and animation, with a step-by-step guide detailing how to link the joints and create constraints and controls for animation, you will also learn how to correctly light and render your scene for porfolio-worthy presentation. Plus, in-depth chapters on anatomy will provide you with a solid foundation on which to develop your 3D character skills, so that by the end of this book you will have created your very own realistic walk cycle.